That night Philip Alston stayed later than usual at Cedar House. He was waiting for the others to go to bed, so that he might have a quiet talk with Ruth. On one or two rare occasions they had been left alone together before the wide hearth, and they both looked back on these times as among the pleasantest they had ever known. But the opportunities for privacy are very few where there is only one living room for an entire family, and the size and publicity of this great room of Cedar House made them fewer than they could have been in almost any other household. And Ruth, seeing what he wished, was looking forward now with even greater delight than she had felt heretofore; the delight that young love feels at the thought of giving its first confidence to a loving, sympathetic heart. She looked at him often through the waiting, with shining eyes, so happy, so eager to ask him to share her happiness that she could hardly wait till the others were gone. William Pressley did not tax her patience long and the judge, too, soon went away to his cabin with David to see that he reached it safely. The old ladies were slower in going; Miss Penelope had many domestic duties to perform, and the movements of the widow Broadnax were always governed entirely by hers. But they, also, went at last with Ruth to assist the stouter lady in getting up the stairs.

The girl came flying down again, with her eyes dancing and her heart playing a tune. Philip Alston rose as she approached, and stood awaiting her with a look on his face that she had never seen before.

"You are tired, dear uncle Philip," she said, taking his hand and holding it against her cheek as she raised her radiant eyes to his face. "Come to the fire and take this big chair. I will sit on the footstool at your knee. There, now! You can rest and be happy. Isn't it sweet to be alone—just you and I—together like this! I love you so dearly, dear uncle Philip. It seems as if I had never before really known just how much I do love you. It seems as if my heart couldn't hold quite all the happiness that fills it to-night. And the tenderness filling it to the brim brings a new feeling of your goodness to me."

She had taken the low seat by his side, and now laid her head down on his knee. He stroked her hair with an unsteady hand; sorely troubled and not knowing what to say. He suddenly looked very old, and felt more helpless than ever before in his life. Looking down on this beautiful head he realized in every sensitive fibre of his soul and body that this lovely young creature, clinging to his knee, was the one thing in the whole world that he had ever loved—deeply, truly, purely, and unselfishly; that her gentle heart was the only heart out of all the hearts beating on the earth that had ever loved him as the innocent love the good. Thinking of this he shrank and trembled, feeling that he held in his grasp a fragile treasure precious beyond all price, which a rude touch might destroy forever. He knew the evil reputation which rumor had given him, and he had seen that Paul Colbert believed the worst. There had been no disguise in the expression of the young doctor's eyes. His gaze bold and keen as an unhooded falcon's, had frankly proclaimed his dislike and mistrust, making it only too plain that he asked no favor by pretending ignorance or on the score of any friendliness that he did not feel. His look and attitude had indeed been so unmistakable that Philip Alston now wondered in sudden terror if she had not already observed them, and he—who had feared nothing in all his life—quailed and quivered before this sudden fear with abject cowardice. In another moment he knew that her trust in him had not been shaken; the resting of her head on his knee told him so much. But how long would it or could it stand against the doubts of the man she loved? That was the question which went through Philip Alston's breast like the thrust of a sword. Her husband's influence would be supreme. A tender, gentle creature, she would be easily influenced through her affections. The young doctor might keep silence, seeing her love for himself and respecting her regard for her foster-father; but he was not the man to hide what he really thought and felt, and she must divine the truth before long. Philip Alston had no hope of changing Paul Colbert's opinion of himself; he knew the world and mankind too well to think for a moment that any man might hope to live down such charges as those which had been brought against himself. Ruth must know sooner or later, and, knowing, would she still love him? There came now a sort of piteous appeal in the touch of his unsteady hand on her hair. The slightest suspicion must blast the exquisite flower of her tender love. With his quick, full appreciation of everything truly noble he had often noted the firm principles, which lay under her sweet gentleness like fine white marble under soft green moss. He did not know that this very trait for which he had loved her, and which now made him afraid, had already been tested again and again; and that her love for him and trust in him, had stood against every attack as firmly as great rocks stand against shallow waves. No, he knew nothing of all this, and he was now in such desperate fear that he dared not speak or move or do anything but stroke her hair with a shaking hand, and stare over her head at the fire trying to clear his mind. She had been silent also, but presently she spoke, putting up her hand to pat the one that was stroking her hair.

"I am waiting, dear heart," she said softly, "waiting to hear what you think of my Paul. I have been wanting so long to tell you; it was on account of William that I waited. But you know now, and I am so glad—so glad! Tell me what you think of him. There is no one but you who can see all that he is. And there is no one but him who can see all that you are. But you two, my dearest, are capable of appreciating each other. And I am a happy, happy girl."

He was feeling faint and sick under the hopelessness of any struggle between old love and young love. With every look of her radiant eyes, with every gentle word that fell from her sweet lips, he was feeling more and more how utterly useless would be any attempt to come between her and her lover. And looking at her he could not think of making any such attempt. When an all-absorbing love has taken complete possession of an empty and worldly heart, that heart becomes more powerless before that love, than a fuller and softer heart ever does. He could not speak, but he murmured something and she went on:—

"How sweet it is to be here alone with you, like this, in the dear, dark, big, old room. Why, uncle, dear, it seems only yesterday that you were rocking me in my cradle, over there in the chimney-corner; when you were already petting and spoiling me, just as you have always done. And to think that I am talking to you to-night about my Paul! Can you realize that it's true? Well, it is—the very truest thing in all the world."

She paused for a moment, but she did not observe that he made no response, and she began again:—

"You see, dear uncle, I didn't mean to love him. I meant to love William and I did in a way as I do now. He is such a good man, but I have found out that goodness, just by itself, is not enough. It may make love last, but it can't make it begin. Why, I never even thought whether my Paul was good or not. I must have loved him just the same."

"But you couldn't love a man if you found out that he was bad, after believing him to be good. It wouldn't be possible for you to do that, would it?" in strange, agitated haste.

She lifted her head and looked at him wonderingly. "I don't know what you mean. My Paul is good! Why, he is here in the wilderness solely for love of humanity, giving his strength, his skill, his time, and all that he has to the service of his country and his kind, just because he is good, and for no other reason. There is no better man living, not even Father Orin, not even you, sir," throwing her arms around his knee and giving it a loving squeeze. "And you know it, too, you are only laughing at me. I don't mind at all. I am too happy to care for teasing."

She laid her head back on his knees and fell happily silent, gazing dreamily into the flames. The wind was rising, and went roaring through the trees around the house; but she heard it with the peaceful feeling of shelter and safety that only happiness feels in wild weather. Presently she asked him if he thought that souls could speak to one another.

"It was at Anvil Rock," she said as simply as if she had been thinking aloud. "I had never thought about loving him. He had never told me that he loved me, but I knew then that he did. Something told me while he was lying on the ground like a dead man. What do you think it could have been? What was it?"

Looking up she saw the shrinking in his face, and she thought it came from his dislike of any mention of painful subjects; but her whole heart was in this question so that she could not let it go without pressing it a little further.

"But tell me, dearest, can souls communicate without speech or sign—if they only love enough?" she urged.

"You are a fanciful, romantic child," he said, trying to smile and to speak lightly. "Why—the man was an utter stranger then—you didn't know him at all."

He had taken her chin in his hand, and his eyes were now looking steadily into hers; but the courage of the moment fled when she involuntarily drew away. He was alarmed at the effect of this one slight effort.

"Such things are too subtle for an old man, my child, too subtle, perhaps, for any man either young or old," he said hurriedly and confusedly. "You women see and feel many things that fly high above our heads. And then I am duller than usual to-night. I am anxious about business matters. The river is rising rapidly, there is danger of a disastrous flood. My boats are not in safe places, and worst of all the Cold Plague broke out to-day on one of them. The boat is tied up to the island. I sent it over there immediately so that you, and the rest of the family, might be in no danger from the spread of the epidemic. But it worries me, and one of the boatmen is said to be dying."

"Send for my Paul. He can cure him. The plague-stricken hardly ever die if he can get to them in time."

She said this with a pretty air of pride in her lover, and a gentle lift of her head. He made no reply, and she turned her eyes from the fire to his face to see why he was silent so long. He was pale with a strange gray pallor, and he met her gaze with a startled, alarmed look. It was the look of a man who blanches and shrinks before some sudden great temptation. She misread the look, taking it for unwillingness to send for her lover.

"You mustn't think of sending for Doctor Colbert if you prefer the other doctor," with swift, fiery jealousy. "But I warn you that if you do, the man will certainly die."

"Do you know where he is to be found in case I should want to send for him?" he said after a moment's silence, and with constraint and hesitation.

"He is riding so much that it is hard to tell; but, uncle, dear," melting and putting her arms about him, "I should not be really offended, of course, if you were to send for the other doctor. You can, dear, if you want to. I like him ever so much better myself, since he took such good care of my Paul."

He laughed uneasily and got up, saying that he was going to see about the trouble on the boat. He saw that he must have a cleared mind and steadied nerves with time to think. And he could not think in her presence, he could only feel her blue eyes on his face and her little hands clasped around his knee or about his arm. He tried not to look at her, and hurriedly began buttoning his coat before starting on his cold way home. In drawing his coat closer, his hand came in contact with the pearls which he had forgotten. He drew them out and hung them again around her neck. She thanked him with a smile, but he saw that she scarcely looked at them, that she was thinking only of her love and her lover, though she held his hand and walked beside him to the front door.

From it they could see dimly and were able to make out the black bulk of the boat lying far out in the river beside the island. As he looked at it a feeling of the worthlessness of all that he owned swept over him, overwhelming him with despair. All the gold that he had gathered, or ever could gather, would be worthless yellow dust if he might not use it to give her comfort or pleasure or happiness. He realized suddenly that this was everything that his riches had meant to him ever since she had wound herself around his heart. Money could do little for him; he was weary and old and sad and had come to feel—as every rich man must come to feel sooner or later—that for himself his riches meant, after all, only food and clothes. And now he found himself facing the end of the sole interest and happiness that he could ever hope to find in life. Henceforth it would be with the utmost that he could do, as it had been just now with these pearls. He fully recognized the hopelessness of trying to win her away from her lover. That had grown plainer with every gentle word that she had said while they had sat before the fire. And he knew that this proud young fellow, whose glance had met his like the crossing of swords, would never allow her to touch a penny of his money, or anything that it could buy, if he could help it. The thought was like tearing the heart out of his breast, and another thought sprang up again in defence of all that he held dear. He began to breathe quickly and heavily, like a man who has been running. He feared that she must feel the plunging of his heart, for she was leaning against him, looking out at the wild, windy night. But she heard only the mournful wail of the wind through the great trees, and the roar of the river rushing under the misty darkness. There was no moon, but the stars were shining in the dark dome of the universe.

"I wonder why the stars look so old, while the world looks so new," she murmured, with her head on his shoulder and her face upturned. "I wonder why there is such a look of changelessness about the heavens, while the earth seems changing so fast!"

Her eyes were wandering over the infinite starry spaces with wondering awe, but he was looking down at her and he started when she cried out in amazement, touched with alarm. She lifted her hand and pointed, and following its direction, he saw that the comet had disappeared.

The celestial visitor was gone almost as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come.